LINGAN — A small hydrogen leak at the Lingan generating station on Monday afternoon was contained and officials say it posed no danger to the public.

Cape Breton Regional Fire Service deputy chief Brent Denny said the small leak happened in a 1,000 gallon storage tank, although there wasn't that amount in the tank at the time. The cause is still under investigation, and there were no injuries as a result.

Fire departments from Scotchtown and New Waterford responded to the scene at about 2 p.m.

"With the wind and weather conditions, it’s actually ideal for this, what's left in the tank was left to dissipate into the atmosphere," he said. "There is no harm to the environment or the general public."

Hazmat was on scene to test the area once the gas was released. The scene was cleared and the road to the generating station was unblocked shortly after 5 p.m.

Denny said the danger of hydrogen gas, if not contained, is that it's highly flammable and can explode.

Nova Scotia power spokesperson Neera Ritcey said employees were moved to the eastern part of the plant for safety reasons. The hydrogen is stored in an outside storage unit and is used for the plant’s cooling system.

“Because the release was going into the atmosphere, the concentration was quite a bit lower and it also lowers the safety risk,” she said. “The hydrogen concentration was lower as a result of it being outside. As a precaution, we ensured the employees were not in that area.”

Brian Vickers of Lingan, who lives on Beach Road three doors down from the station, said he didn’t hear much about the problem and didn’t know what was going on at first until they called the plant.

“We were a little nervous starting off because you don’t know what’s going to happen down there,” he said. “Usually if they have problems, you don’t even hear about it and it was done pretty quick. Today was just a surprise.”

Ritcey said the Lingan station keeps in contact with a community liaison committee.

“We always work very closely with our neighbours and situations like this can cause concern, but fortunately in a situation like this where the site was in a location where the release was going into the atmosphere, the concentration was quite low and it did not pose a safety risk,” she said.

tjcolello@cbpost.com

Lingan Generating Station

• Lingan is the province’s largest generating station.

• Constructed in the 1970s, Lingan's four units were commissioned separately from 1979-83.